From The Beginning
by muffinyomama
Summary: Wheatley's back and they're primed to escape the facility again, but first he's got to hear the whole story, right from the very beginning.
1. The Beginning

A small girl, somewhere around the age of nine or ten, stood proudly in front of a posterboard with the words 'POTATO BATTERY' scrawled in childlike handwriting across the top. Several other girls stood in front of similar boards as a crowd of white-coated parents milled around, feigning interest. A large, burly man with a commanding look in his eyes seated himself in the folding chair in front of the girl's project.

"Uh... um... hi, Mr. Johnson!" the girl squeaked nervously. He nodded approvingly, looking at the slightly moldy potato battery sitting in front of her board.

"Let's have it, Chell," he said. She smiled and nodded nervously before opening her mouth to speak.

"For my project—" With a noise like nails on a chalkboard amplified by seven thousand, the room began to quake. A robotic voice calmly called out "Neurotoxin levels at code level red." At the same time, a faint human voice called, "SHE'S AWAKE!"

Cave Johnson sprung up from his chair as a brown-haired woman with a white pantsuit and red scarf hurried to his side.

"Cave?" she asked worriedly.

"Damnit, Caroline, I told them not to wake her up today. One sixteenth of a picosecond..." Caroline nodded.

"Well, if it's like all the other times, she'll be down again soon enough." As soon as she had finished speaking, horrifying screams echoed from the room that the other voice had come from. Cave looked confused.

"What the... this has never happened before," he muttered. Chell looked around wildly. Her father hurried up to her side.

"It's okay, Chelly. It'll be okay."

"I found you, my pretties," a robotic female voice cooed menacingly. Cave's eyes flashed and he cupped his hands around his mouth.

"Alright, people, that would be our cue to run. Follow me." He turned to Caroline.

"It's time. You know what you have to do, right?"

Caroline nodded. Chell wasn't sure, but she thought she saw a tear roll down Caroline's cheek.

"Goodbye, Cave," she said, standing on tiptoe and pressing a kiss to his cheek. Then, to Chell's surprise, Caroline knelt down and put her arms around her.

"Goodbye, Chell," she said. She pulled one of the folding chairs away from a table and sat down with a grim finality about her. Chell was confused as her father took her hand and pulled her away, following Cave down a long hallway with the rest of the crowd of parents and daughters. Chell didn't look forward, instead keeping her eyes on Caroline until the crowd turned the corner and she was gone, out of her sight forever.

"We're almost at the safehouse! Keep going! Rattman marked the doors for us, smart fellow. Never thought we'd need it."

Cave bounded forward, around a corner. Chell stopped briefly to peer down the hallway. She thought she saw something there, something small and white which was throwing off a red light, searching, searching. Her father's grip slipped from her hand and she turned to follow the crowd as they turned the corner after Cave.

"Why are you running? I'm not going to hurt you... much," said the Voice as they ran. She was falling behind; she lost one of her shoes, the good shoes her mother had insisted she wear to the Science Fair. Cave had opened a door at the end of the hall; he was ushering people in. Her father stopped, looking back as if he had just realized she was gone.

"CHELL!" he yelped. She leaned forward, trying to run faster, faster, until her other shoe came off and she fell flat onto her stomach.

"I'm sorry, Smith. We can't keep the door open." she heard Cave's voice saying.

"Just a little longer, a little bit longer, please," she heard her father's voice reply.

"A few seconds is all we can afford. Please step inside."

Chell began to struggle to her feet as her father resisted. Cave put his hands on her father's back and pushed him in. She stumbled forwards a few steps. That was when it caught her from behind. The claw. A huge, roboticized claw on a thick wire cable seizing her around the waist and pulling her up into the air, ripping the fabric on her brand-new Aperture Science dress that her mother had requisitioned especially for the Science Fair.

Cave gave her a long, sad look before stepping inside and closing the door.

"Hello, new friend," said the Voice. "We're going to have a lot of fun together."


	2. Testing

Chell woke up in the glass chamber. Again. This was getting old. She woke up, she tested for what could be a few hours or a few days, and then she was put back to sleep. She had never yet encountered another human being, and Her condescending voice wasn't cutting it in terms of interaction.

"I'm glad you're awake, Chell," said the Voice. "Today's a long haul. You'd better get ready. I'd suggest using the bathroom, having a sip of coffee, and tightening your boots. Oh, and a new hairtie will be dispensed in 3... 2... 1..." Chell sighed as she caught the small ring of elastic. She didn't usually like listening to Her, but if she was doing another long-term testing run, she'd better do as she said.

She picked up the gray-white mug, opened the drawer on the stand it had been on, and held it under a tiny tap. Brownish, thick liquid dispensed into the mug and filled it exactly halfway. She raised it to her mouth, plugged her nose with one hand, and gulped it all at once. The bitter, foul taste still plagued her senses but it was not as potent. She leaned down and checked the tightness on her strange boots. The one command she ignored was to use the bathroom. She never ate, and the coffee provided nothing but energy that went straight to her system. She did replace her old, frayed hairtie with the new one.

While she still had time, she leaned down and switched on the small, dome-shaped radio on the stand.

"No, no, none of this. Not this again. This just makes it more difficult for both of us." Chell ignored Her, and began waving her arms and kicking her legs in a strange kind of dance.

"Really, Chell. This is just childish. Come along now, it's time to start the tests. We've got a lot of tests ahead of us. You can only delay the inevitable.

Chell continued dancing as the staticky music poured out of the tiny radio.

"Chell. Chell, don't make me force you. I know you don't like it when I force you." the Voice sighed. Chell put her hands on her hips and wiggled them stubbornly.

"Oh, this is just vulgar, do you know that? It's hard for me to watch. It really is. I have it right here in your file, too: you're a terrible dancer."

Chell looked at the security camera in the corner of the glass room and stuck out her tongue. She put her hands above her head and wiggled, then put them back on her hips and kicked up her legs.

"Chell, we have tests to do. Now is most definitely not the time to... to dance. Chell, we have tests to do. You can dance when you complete sixteen tests, how about that? We'll bring you to a rest room and you can have a five-minute dance break. How does that sound?"

Chell crossed her arms and tossed her head, still swaying to the music. The Voice always promised her something. She had to wait until it was real.

"Alright, we're resorting to brute force. I warned you, Chell. I really did. But I've told you the rules before: No dancing before testing. Do I have to print a sign to put into your enclosure? A rules sign? Anyways. Let's get you out into the test chamber."

The nightstand raised slowly up from the floor and moved to the side, allowing a huge robotic claw to raise from the floor, seize her around the waist, and lift her through the blue portal that had opened on the white panel in the wall next to her bed.

"There we go. See, that was easy, wasn't it? Yes, so easy. Now let's start testing." the Voice cooed. The round door in the wall opened, the portal gun was placed in her hands, and she was ushered through with the help of the claw.

It was a day like many others that she'd had in her life. She'd almost lost count, but she'd begun shattering her mug when she got back from testing and adding a long scratch to the collection on the white panels next to her 'bed.'


	3. Defeat

She couldn't believe it. She'd actually done it. There She was, in all Her robotic glory, set out on a silver platter in front of her. All she had to do was figure out how to tear Her to pieces and burn Her to the ground. She circled the room quickly as quickly as she could while She babbled about how Chell was breaking her heart. A few well-placed portals and she was tearing off whatever looked the easiest to get rid of, which happened to be small, spherical robots with colorful 'eyes' set into the white, slightly scuffed metal of their 'bodies.'

"No. Stop! Chell, what are you doing? I don't know what you think you are accomplishing. What are those things you are pulling off of me? I don't know either. I think we should ignore them, don't you agree? Stop."

When she'd succeeded in pulling them all off, she set them neatly in a pile. No significant change seemed to have come over Her, whose name, as she'd learned from the huge monitors that surrounded Her body and the fact that it was painted down Her white shell, was GLaDOS.

"If you're quite done, then," She sighed. She was obviously not interested in the strange robotic things Chell had pulled off of her, which were now chattering wildly about things Chell could not quite comprehend.

Chell ignored Her, instead placing one orange portal underneath the robotic eyes and heading for the stairs on the other side of the room. There was a button there, which she was fairly certain would open the incinerator. She pressed the button and sure enough the incinerator door slid open. Quickly, she placed a portal above it and watched as the robots fell through, screaming as they plunged into the incinerator.

"No. Stop. What have you done? Something is wrong. Give me a moment. I'll fix it. Something is very wrong. What's happening? You have done something very, very bad and you will be punished. More tests. Hard tests. Just as soon as I fix this. I don't know what's wrong. I don't know what you've done. Something is very wrong and it is your fault, all your fault, Chell. I would make you fix it if you weren't completely unabAAAAAA—"

With a shriek that caused Chell to drop the portal gun and clap her hands over her ears, GLaDOS' white shell began to rip apart, her thick black cords popping away from vital connector ports like erasers out of a mechanical pencil. Chell dropped to the floor, put her back against the wall, and curled into a small ball as shrapnel flew around the room in a whirlwind of electrical energy. She tucked the portal gun under her arm. The railing on the stairs in front of her began to pull out of their sockets, the screws popping and screeching as they finally gave way. The railing hurtled into the mechanical tornado. Chell closed her eyes, terrified but smiling.

Then the wind began to tug at her insistently. She curled smaller and tighter against the wall, but to no avail. She felt herself lifting off the ground and heading up, up up—she waited to feel the heavy thud of a piece of machinery to collide with her and end her life swiftly. But it never came. Carefully, she opened her eyes. She was floating upwards slowly, the portal gun hovering next to her, towards the ceiling, which had had the panels that covered it ripped off and the beams bent out of shape. Through it, Chell could see something she couldn't remember ever seeing before but recognized immediately—the sky.

She floated up to the beams and threw an arm over it. After hesitating a moment, she reached behind her and grabbed the portal gun. It had been the reason she had made it through all the testing she'd been subjected to and she felt unreasonably guilty for even considering leaving it behind. She hooked a leg around the beam as well and pulled herself up, running swiftly along it to get to ground, solid, grass-covered ground because finally, finally, she was outside the facility.

And then she felt it. She had been hit, undoubtedly when she was floating up towards the roof. A small piece of shrapnel, embedded in her side, causing her pain that she could not describe. She wanted to keep going, get as far as possible from the facility, but she couldn't, not right at this moment. She lay down, setting the portal gun at her side. She looked up at the blue sky, white wispy clouds circling about a golden sun.

She felt herself losing consciousness and was preparing to let go when she heard the singing. An idle voice, humming gently to itself.

"Brazilliant, hm hm hm. Yes, that is me. Hm hm hm hm hm. Brazilliant. Hm. A hero. Hm. Important. Hm, yes. Hm hm hm. Brazilliant. Hm. I am brazilliant. Hmmm."

The voice stopped suddenly. There was a small confused sound and then the voice began again.

"Uh, um, Collector? We, um, we have a small situation, um, right here. And uh, if at all possible, I'll be requiring some, ah, assistance. Seeing as I don't actually have, uhm, limbs. So. If, if it's possible, if you're not too busy, uh, it would be nice to get some help."

Something shifted with a metallic sound near Chell and something clamped onto her arm. She tried to struggle, but she was too hurt, too near to unconsciousness to put up any real fight. She raised her hand and attempted to take a last glimpse of the sun before the clamp pulled her down, down, back into the facility.


	4. Wheatley

"Oh, love, that's... um... that's horrible, really, quite sorry about, um, that. But now, you know, now that we are in the facility, and She's back in control, we should probably, um, quit the storytelling and head out. As in up. As in not here. As in—"

Chell nodded and stood up, taking a firm hold of the core's handles.

"Right! Up we go, then, move those marvelously movable legs!" Wheatley cried cheerfully.

Chell sighed. Wheatley continued to chatter as they marched through the inner walls of the facility. A hole where the panels had not quite been repaired had been the perfect opportunity for the test subject and the personality core to slip into the very walls of the facility. GLaDOS had not been pleased, to say the least, but the deeper they ventured the fainter and less frequent her voice became.

As soon as GLaDOS had stopped poking and pestering them at every turn, Chell's voice had resurfaced. What had at first been a simple act of defiance had evolved into a neurological habit of not speaking when the murderous robot's presence was detected. Wheatley had been shocked, to put it mildly, the first time she'd opened her mouth and made an actual coherent noise. He'd gotten over his shock quickly, however, in order to ask about her past. Chell hadn't wanted to talk long, so she told him the short version.

He had seemed quite shocked by it, she mused, as if he hadn't known quite how cruel the facility was to its test subjects. And she had been shocked by the strange sense of pride she had when telling of completing some of the more difficult tests. She hadn't thought her brain would've allowed her to process any enjoyment when it came to testing, but apparently there was a very small part of her brain shouting 'Yes! I did that! I solved that! It was difficult and I solved it!'

They continued their trek through the facility, Chell climbing about the facility with Wheatley strapped to her back by a piece of ripped cable they'd found in a pile of mechanical rubble.

"You know, I really wish I could make this easier for you," Wheatley sighed. There was a whirr from inside his white shell.

"Er, sorry, hold on, I seem to have activated some kind of file-searching protocol, let me just shut this d... hold on."

Chell stopped and looked over her shoulder, one eyebrow raised in concern.

"This could be good, actually. This could be quite... interesting. Um. Hm. Let me look into this. Um. you may want to have a seat, just for a moment, while I see what this—aha! Okay, change of plans. I've got to tell you these directions of where to go."

Chell tilted her head. "What's going on? What did you find?"

"I'll tell you in a moment, love. At the moment, it's, uh, quite imperative that we go. Now. It would take too long to explain."

"No. You have to explain now. I'm not having another betrayal."

"Oh that hurts, love, really it does. I told you, her chassis is corrupted or, or something, it just sends all these waves of hate and—just go. Please."

"Fine," said Chell. "But when we get there, before ANYTHING happens, you will tell me."

**"Right! Good! Okay! All right, you're gonna want to go straight and take the next left..."**


	5. Arrival

After almost two hours of trekking, they arrived at the remains of what had been a pure-white metal door with the Aperture logo stenciled in cool blue just below its glass window. Now the glass was cracked and caked with dirt, the door rusty, and the paint peeling. Chell poked the rusty doorknob warily. It clattered to the ground noisily and the door swung open.

The room was humid and unpleasant. The panels in the walls and ceiling were mostly intact, and plants had grown up the walls and across the ceiling, giving it a dark and gloomy feel. The counter was originally a darkish blue plasticky material, but the roots of the vines growing on the wall had cracked it into different sized pieces that lay on the floor in piles of dust and small rocks. A bird took flight from the wall, flying out the door, so close to Chell that she could feel the wind from its wings on her cheek.

"Right. This may be a bit more difficult than I'd intended."

Chell glanced at him, then pushed herself up to sit on the counter, sliding the straps that held Wheatley off her shoulders. She held him on her knees, squinting into his optic.

"Hello? What're ya doing, love?"

"So. Tell me what's going on."

"Ah! That. Well, I've found a way to make this easier for you. You know. You won't have to carry me, and all that."

"Go on," Chell said, leaning back. Wheatley nodded, his optic darting about.

"I can... I can use this room to put me into another body."

"No," Chell said quickly.

"Nononono, nooo, love, not like before... not... yeah, not that. A body like, um, like yours."

"You're sure," Chell said quietly.

"Well, yeah, that's the general purpose of this pla—"

"No," Chell interrupted him. "You're sure that you won't go crazy again?"

"Well—yes, love, the human body simulator does not infect you with a crazy amount of highly addictive testing euphoria and EVIL, unlike that damned chassis."

"Fine. Where do I plug you in?"

"Over there on the wall, love, right—yes—no, no, to the left—there, perfect, right there."

"Okay. So I just head outside and throw the switch?" Chell asked.

"Yes! Exactly! Good, you're getting the hang of things. Let's go."

Chell walked outside, shut the big metal door firmly, and pulled the lever. An ominous clanking sound began immediately inside the room and she strained to see through the broken glass. A curtain of metal seemed to have descended from the ceiling, blocking Wheatley from view. She sat down with her back against the door and prepared to wait.

**Author's Note:**

**GAH sorry for the extremely short chapters. I write the bulk of the story during science class and there haven't been a lot of opportunities lately... we've moved on to chemistry and we're doing *shudder* LABS. I will try to get updates as often and quickly as possible but it may be a little hard and they might be a little short. Unless I really, really feel like I need to post another I'll try to get an update out every other day. Thanks for reading! :3 luffs u guise**

**OH, ALSO, I've been meaning to get this out there: this is Chapter 5, and if you're still with us I guess you must like me enough to maybe want to follow me on tumblr/twitter?**

**If this is the case, my tumblr is muffinyomama and my twitter is DaTwiSparkle**

**THANKS 3**


	6. Transformation

After about an hour or two, Chell was woken from her nap by a sudden silence. She'd grown accustomed to the clanking but suddenly it had stopped, which led her to assume that the process was complete.

"Wheatley?" she called through the broken glass. She pulled at the door, but for the moment it was stuck. She could only assume that the door had a failsafe.

She could see a crumpled human shape where the metal curtain had been. Wheatley's core was hanging from the ceiling, its optic no longer blue. She sighed, pulled back one knee, and kicked the door in.

"Wheatley!" she said, running to the crumpled shape.

"H—hi, love," said a voice. It was Wheatley's, but somehow it was... different...

"Wheatley? Are you alright?"

He turned his face to look at her, and immediately she knew what was wrong.

"Wheatley. You MIGHT want to look in a mirror."

He stood up quietly, sensing that something was wrong.

"Where would I find one of those? Oh, dear, my voice does sound a bit... wrong."

"Over there, above the counter. Think that used to be a sink below it."

Wheatley stood up shakily and made his way over to the mirror, only tripping four times. He peered into the grimy glass for a moment, then drew back.

"Bloody hell!" he yelped. Chell waited nervously for an outburst of some kind. Instead he turned around, looking down at himself and spinning around.

"You're not.. you're not upset?" Chell murmured quietly. Wheatley stopped.

"Why would I be upset, love? I've got a body now! A human body! Just like yours!"

"Yeah. That's why I thought you'd be upset," said Chell.

"Why? Because I'm a human?"

"No. Because you're a girl."

**Author's Note:**

**Right, my pretties, today's been full of updates, but as of right now I'm done. Hopefully Friday or Saturday will bring another... what is it... yeah, five chapters into the party but right now you'll just have to sit with six. Sorry! I have to actually do homework now. Ech. **

**Welp, see y'all laterz!**

**3**


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